It is difficult to explain the excitement I felt when I saw Nick Offerman had written a book about people he considers to be American heroes… and that he narrates the audio book himself. As one of the stars of a tv show I adore, “Parks and Recreation,” Offerman plays the gruff, Libertarian director of the local Parks department in a small town in Indiana. I knew little about him as a person when I began the book, but quickly learned that Offerman has a great deal in common with his character on the show, Ron Swanson (whose memes on the Internet bring me joy on a regular basis).

In “Gumption,” Offerman describes the qualifications of 21 individuals that he posits display courage in their lives, therefore deserving the attention and respect of himself and his readers. The list begins with some of our nation’s founding fathers, and he describes some well-known and other lesser-known stories about greats like George Washington and James Madison. Each individual also gets a nickname, such as “The Orator” (Frederick Douglass) and a history-lesson-style approach to who they are and why they matter. Some of my favorite chapters featured Wendell Berry and Tom Laughlin.

Offerman applies his humorist tendencies, especially to the “old white guys” that he blames for messing up our country with poor, selfish choices. He values human decency and an equal playing field for all, which means he frequently reminds the reader about all the times America as a country has foundered in its fairness, such as the internment of Japanese citizens in World War II.

After the easy Founding Fathers selections, Offerman moves into less-obvious choices including Conan O’Brien, Frederick Olmsted, Michael Pollan and Jeff Tweedy. He strongly favors people who have the following interests: reading, writing, woodworking, and connecting with nature. Offerman finds many modern pursuits to be frivolous and doesn’t hesitate to say so, frequently.

I found the book to be very educational and laughed out loud in many places. I also re-wound some segments so I could write down a few quotes in my phone. Then I bought one of Wendell Berry’s books, and added some movies he described to my Netflix queue. I could have done without some of the crude jokes but hey… nobody is perfect. For one man’s candid and funny take on men and women who live(d) with courage and gumption, you’ll definitely be left with a smile on your face. 🙂

“It’s What I Do” is a remarkable book by a focused, motivated young woman. Author Lynsey Addario guides us through her career as a news photographer for some of the most esteemed agencies in the world, including the New York Times and National Geographic.

Addario has faced seemingly insurmountable challenges and resistance in the countries in which she works due to a variety of reasons — cultural, religious, political and even geographic. She has been kidnapped, held at gunpoint, and smuggled through towns in the backseat of countless vehicles. Often forced to pose as the wife of a male journalist, she is refreshingly honest about reaching her emotional limits.

Her emotions–and especially her female outlook– are what make her work so approachable. Because I haven’t found myself in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, or Iraq recently, I can’t say whether her assessment of the level of hostility toward Westerners in those countries is accurate. What I can say though is that she can capture the pain in a mother’s face, and the fear in a young woman’s eyes, in a single, haunting image. The same cross-cultural wisdom that gives her the ability to take those pictures lends itself to her writing, where she says it was hard to relate to most women in these countries because, through the language barrier, it was shared that she did not have children of her own.

The author’s love life actually has an impact on her work, because when she leaves the countries where she is on assignment it is usually to recharge and meet up with a significant others. The struggle of her loved ones (and those of her comrades) to relate to her in pursuit of her career advancement, and her higher goal of bringing the attention of decision makers to the plight of women and children in war-torn countries, is real. The reader truly begins to understand how difficult it is for the families and friends of journalists to view the sacrifices as worth it when the journalists themselves become targets for warlords and terrorist organizations.

Addario explained her motivation to risk her own life for her work in one of the more powerful statements in the book: “…something in me had changed after those months in Iraq. I was now a photojournalist willing to die for stories that had the potential to educate people. I wanted to make people think, to open their minds, to give them a full picture of what was happening in Iraq so they could decide whether they supported our presence there. When I risked my life to ultimately be censored by someone sitting in a cushy office in New York, who was deciding on behalf of regular Americans what was too harsh for their eyes, depriving them of their right to see where their own children were fighting, I was furious.”

The book is filled, of course, with carefully selected images. They are powerful photographs, able to draw you in and make you consider the big picture. Addario’s writing is passionate, graphic, and very relatable. If you are interested in history (military or otherwise), current events, journalism, or really the world around you… pick it up.